Climate change: we've heard about it, but what does it really mean?

Severe flooding in the UK and around the world has repeatedly hit the front pages in recent years. One consequence is growing concern around the role of climate change as a driver of extreme flooding. Those impacted by flooding as well as the wider public, policy makers and governmental agencies want to know: is climate change leading to more frequent or more severe flooding? Unfortunately, providing an answer to this crucial question is extraordinarily complex. I will seek to outline what we can and cannot say about future flood risk under climate change and future research directions.

Accepting that mitigation alone will not be enough to tackle climate change, attention has shifted to how to prepare for, and adapt to, the impacts to come. Climate information plays a crucial role here. It provides insights into where we will be effected, when, and in what ways. Yet climate information too often goes unused. This talk explains why this might be. Reflecting on recent research with climate scientists, policymakers, and decision-makers, I will suggest that if we want climate information to be 'used' we must do things differently.

Taking action to mitigate and adapt to climate change will need financial capital. But who should be responsible for financing such actions? Is there a particular type or group of actors that should lead major financial contributions? And how do we engage those stakeholders that are not yet contributing to climate financing or aware that they should be? The answers to these questions are contentious in multitudinous ways. This talk will outline current debates about the future of climate financing and what we are doing to find possible practical ways forward.